Do Stars Influence Our Lives?

There are many people and even Muslims who regularly consult astrology columns, ask each other their astrological signs and regularly read their horoscopes in magazines or online.

Yet astrology is a system which rests entirely on belief that stars and planets are gods.

Many of these people consider themselves modern educated and literate and yet they are fond of reading horoscopes. However if you ask them why they read horoscopes? They would say “We don’t believe them but we just read them for fun” This is just like knowing a person about whom you know that he constantly lies and fibs and misleads yet you regularly go to him and ask him for advice! This is nothing but insanity and stupidity!

The Origin of Astrology

Belief that stars and planets can influence our lives “Comes from Babylonian times, when the seven moving heavenly bodies, (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) were believed to be GODS roaming in the sky. To this day the planets still carry the names of ancient gods. These gods were thought to interact with mysterious star patterns that were apparently fixed on the Celestial Sphere and so influence life on earth. More particularly their configuration at the moment of birth – but somehow not before or afterwards – was thought to mould an individual’s character.

The most powerful “god” was believed to be the Sun and a person’s Sun sign – The constellation in which the Sun was positioned on their date of birth. From this have come the 12 well-known signs of Zodiac and their associated dates.

Today, of course, we know that the Sun and Planets are not gods. Our Earth is a planet and Sun is a star, and the other stars are distant suns. There is no reason to suppose that they control our lives any more than do the trees or the mountains.

Furthermore, modern astrology still uses the constellation dates relating to theSun’s apparent position in 500 BC!. Since then, the slow wobble of the Earth’s axis has shifted the dates, but the astrologers have not adapted to this!!”(Cape Town Planetarium’s Star Watching by Anthony Fairall)

What Quran Says About Sun ,Moon and the Stars

The Sun Moon and the stars are nothing but Allah’s creation. They are all working under Allah’s command and have been made for the purpose of serving mankind. There is no reason at all to believe that they can somehow control our destiny or effect our lives on earth because as Muslims we should be well aware that the knowledge of destiny is only with Allah and is written in Loh e Mahfooz. ( The preserved Tablet in the heavens)

The following are some of the purposes of creating Sun, Moon and Stars as mentioned by Allah Subhana Watala in the Quran.

Sun and the Moon are signs of Allah

“And from among His Signs are the night and the day, and the sun and the moon.”(Quran 41:37)

Sun and Moon help in counting Years and Months

“It is He Who made the sun a shining thing and the moon as a light And measured out its (their) stages, that you might know the number of years and the calculation. (Quran 10:5)

Sun and Moon Help in fixing time of Prayers

“Perform As­Salât from mid-day till the darkness of the night (i.e. the Zuhr, ‘Asr, Maghrib, and ‘Ishâ’ prayers), and recite the Qur’ân in the early dawn.

(Quran 17: 78 )

Stars are for the beautification of the sky

“And indeed, We have put the big stars in the heaven and We beautified it for the beholders.” (Quran 15:16)

Stars for decoration and guarding the Heavens

“And We adorned the nearest (lowest) heaven with lamps (stars) to be an adornment as well as to guard (from the devils by using them as missiles against the devils). Such is the Decree of Him the All-Mighty, the All-Knower.” (Quran 41:12)

Stars for finding direction in land and sea

“It is He Who has set the stars for you, so that you may guide your course with their help through the darkness of the land and the sea.(Quran 6:97)

Before GPS ships and people traveling in the desert used stars for finding their way. My father is a sailor and he showed me the instrument used in the olden days for finding direction using stars.

Consequences of reading horoscopes and Astrology Columns

Leads to Kufr – Disbelief

Astrology is considered Kufr because it destroys Tawheed Al Asma WasSifaat (The Unity of Allah’s Names and Attributes . Such beliefs give planets and stars some of God’s unique qualities, most prominent among them “Qadr” -Destiny.

Prophet Muhammad said “Whoever went to a fortune-teller and believed in what he said, has disbelieved in what was revealed to Muhammad.” (Ahmed & Abu Dawood)

Belief in Stars is actually denial of divine destiny

Prophet Muhammad May Peace Be Upo n him said: “What I fear most for my nation after my time is: the injustice of their leader, the belief in the stars and the denial of divine destiny.”(Ibn Askeer)

The prayer is not accepted

Prophet Muhammad (May Peace be Upon him) said: “The Salaah of whoever approaches a fortuneteller and asks him about anything will not be accepted for forty days and nights” (Sahih Muslim)

Conclusion:

It is well established scientifically that stars and planets are not gods and thus there is no possible way that they can control life on earth. More so as Muslims we know very well from the Quran that destiny is controlled only by Allah and the knowledge of the future and the unseen only rests with Allah. Quran makes it very clear the purpose of creating stars and planets and the sun and the moon so there is no possible reason to believe that stars and planets influence our lives.

And most importantly believing in astrology leads to Shirk -Polytheism as it gives divine powers to stars. So all those Muslims who are just reading horoscopes for fun and trying to find out what is in their future through any means like cup reading, palmistry, numbers etc should know they are committing shirk “in fun”.

And Shirk is the one and only sin Allah will never ever forgive unless you Sincerely repent from it and never do such a thing again.

Would these fun loving people EVER bow down in front of idols just for fun?

Would they go to mandirs and greek temples and bow their heads and ask these gods of stone for help JUST FOR FUN?

What if your JUST FOR FUN lands you in big trouble – JUST ETERNITY in hell?

14 thoughts on “Do Stars Influence Our Lives?”

javeria, was just wondering about palmistry? As you have referred it as shirk, i have also havent heard of it in any nice words. Are there any sources or references that you are aware of? Some one told me its true what is written but the reasoning behind it being forbidden is us not being allowed to know our destiny and trying to change it accordingly? Does any such thing exist in the islamic dictionary? Even if it forbidden, does it acknowledge the written knowledge? Any references? Sources?

There is no evidence whatsoever in the Quran or the hadith which might imply that our destiny is written in the lines of our palms.

Palmistry comes under “fortunetelling” which is the art of predicting the future.

Majority of the fortunetellers use guess work and generalizations in making predictions and to give weight to their “predictions” pretend to use various methods of fortunetelling like reading tea leaves, drawing lines, writing numbers, palm reading, horoscopes, crystal balls, bones and stick throwing etc etc.

Common sense tells us that all of these things are non living things and can not tell our future just like mountains, rocks or your socks can’t tell your future!

The only real truth to the fortunetelling is in magic and in using Jinns to get information about the other person and to make the jinss tell the conversations of the angels high up in the heavens and somehow get some information of the future.

The art of magic was taught to the Bani Israel by two angels called Harut and Marut ( This is mentioned in the Quran)These two angels were sent by Allah as a test and people were forbidden to learn the art of magic because it requires SHIRK. However many people learnt the magic and even tody, people calling themselves Muslims are practicing magic which directly takes them out of the fold of Islam.

One more fact is that even using jinns , no body can tell the future accurately because the jinns are known to lie and to mix up truths with lies.

Magic and using Jinns is totally forbidden in Islam. It is haram and any other means or methods of fortunetelling are also haram because it involves denying the divine destiny written in the loh e mahfuz and saying that other beings and objects have the knowledge of the unseen.

Great post! Really this horoscope reading has become so common among the youth and you would hardly find any magazine where a page or two aren’t dedicated to this evil thing. We need to tell all these people its reality.
And also, if the stars do not infleunce our life nor do they inflence our personality. Mostly the question asked by someone we just met is “what’s your star?!” and when we reply they start telling us our qualities and all that. It comes to the same thing isn’t it?

Wow..you dont realise how much sawab you have gained. I have to admit i had no idea that horoscopes were shirk. I thought they were secret codes of life. I know we weren’t supposed to believe in it i didn’t know we couldn’t even read it. Just one question. How can jinns know the future??

Narrated ‘Aisha:
I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “The angels descend, the clouds and mention this or that matter decreed in the Heaven. The devils listen stealthily to such a matter, come down to inspire the soothsayers with it, and the latter would add to it one-hundred lies of their own.”

I have been pondering over this issue for quite some time.. Yes definitely planets and stars cant be gods but is it possible that planets and stars have their influence on human beings as a part of Allah’s system of ruling universe?

This is how I came to the conclusion that planets have no power to influence us…

Assume Allah gave each planet and star a specific power to influence our lives and they are just carrying out Allah’s orders.

If so, planets and stars should never inspire us to do anything evil, bcoz they are working according to Allah’s orders and Allah never encourages human beings to indulge in evil, right? But, as per astrology planets do make us do evil things based on their placement. So this possibility is ruled out.

What if planets have been given power by Allah and they have free will and are susceptible to shaitan’s inspiration and cause us to do evil? In this case, it means that apart from Allah there is another intelligent power (planets and stars) that rules our lives. Which is not possible. So this is also ruled out.

Others verses of Quran that support the fact that planets have no power over human beings…

“Do you not see that Allah has made what is in the heavens and what is in the earth subservient to you, and made complete to you His favors outwardly and inwardly? And among men is he who disputes in respect of Allah though having no knowledge nor guidance, nor a book giving light.” 31:20

How can something subservient and subordinate to human beings control their personality and future?

“The seven heavens declare His glory and the earth (too), and those who are in them; and there is not a single thing but glorifies Him with His praise, but you do not understand their glorification; surely He is Forbearing, Forgiving.” 17:44

Planets are constantly worshipping Allah and glorifying him. Even if they had power to influence human beings, they should not inspire us to do evil because they are pious believers in Allah, but this is not the case in astrology.

“Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees an affair, He only says to it, Be, so there it is.” 2:117

This is a marvelous evidence that Allah doesnt need planets to trigger an event on earth. He just says ‘BE’ and it happens, contrary to what astrology says.

May Allah guide everyone on the true path and protect us from the traps of shaitan. Ameen.

my names sadia. i have a very serious problem.can anyone please help me.i was searching about palmistry and i found this page. my problem is that i made a gunnah by showing someone my hand and he told me diffrent things. (and the person who made me do this also claimed that this fortune teller has a passion for palmistrya and he told many people things that later on became true)

he told me somethings too but i didnt beleive any of them, until one day i felt that one of them came true.
now i am really disturbed, i want to forget everything. i am in depression by thinking on some things he told me because they are not good.

please help me.what should i do.can someone discuss this problem with me under islam and logic too.please help me understand and strengthen my eeman so that i could forget it, so that my heart feels satisfied. please! i really really need help